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Recently HuffPost Live host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani sat down with Ustream CEO Brad Hunstable to discuss his take on issues such as the growing buzz around mobile streaming apps and the rise of citizen journalism. (Watch the video here; the interview begins just after the 21-minute mark.)

On the latest mobile streaming apps

Hunstable sees the popularity of new mobile streaming apps as a testament to the growing significance of video and the power it places in the hands of mobile users. “It’s another data point for how hot video is,” he remarked. “If you think about it right now, everyone’s carrying around a satellite truck in their pocket.”

On the responsibilities of citizen journalists

“One of the things that video brings — particularly live video — is some element of transparency,” Hunstable told Modarressy, “but it needs balance. It needs context.”

Recalling Ustream’s role in bringing global attention to uprisings in Russia and the Ukraine in recent years, he noted that “getting that unfiltered, that real-time access to what is happening is not a bad thing.” At the same time, “you need to get all the other facts that are associated with [the issue].”

On Ustream’s biggest moment so far

When Modarressy asked Hunstable what was, in his opinion, the most powerful use of Ustream to date, the self-proclaimed “space junkie” cited the Mars rover landing. “To be able to watch that moment and experience it — there were millions and millions of people watching it,” he said. “To experience this collective consciousness of people watching us visiting another planet was absolutely exciting and powerful.”

Writer Kimberlee Morrison noted that Ustream has been providing streaming video since 2007 and has now evolved past the consumer phase to focus on the needs of enterprises. Ustream CEO Brad Hunstable commented that the recent buzz over new apps simply highlights the growing popularity of online video. “In a lot of ways,” he told Morrison, “the Internet is becoming video.”

Hunstable also commented that, while newer apps offer integration with social platforms, they lack the analytics that companies need to attain real business goals. “Ustream,” on the other hand, “is building capabilities for brands to be media companies in their own right.”

In the recent article “Meerkat, Periscope, Been There, Done That,” Bloomberg Business contributor Olga Kharif reminded readers that new apps Meerkat and Periscope are not the first tools to enable live video streaming from smartphones — far from it.

While the new apps have attracted considerable buzz, both in the media and among consumers, Ustream ranks among the “pioneers” of streaming video, dating back to 2007. And while newcomers focus on consumers, CEO Brad Hunstable points out that Ustream has evolved to a new level, offering a secure, high-performance tool to help enterprises reach customers and employees.

As the buzz about mobile streaming video reaches a fever pitch, Time magazine’s John Patrick Pullen points out one aspect of the issue that no one’s talking about: the impact on our mobile data plans.

Highlighting that Ustream has been in the live-streaming game for more than five years, Pullen sat down with CEO Brad Hunstable to get his take on live video apps will impact the mobile data landscape.

Live-stream users should expect their data bill to reflect how they use these apps, says Ustream CEO Brad Hunstable. “If you broadcast for one minute, once to twice a week it’s not a big deal, “ he says. “But if you broadcast for an hour once or twice a day, you could have some sticker shock.”

Fortunately, Ustream already addresses the issue of bandwidth and data usage by dynamically adjusting the video feed for the network or device.

“We’re optimizing for quality in the background,” says Hunstable. “If someone is on a poor connection, we’re actually going to send them a lower quality file to make sure that it gets delivered and works, and is not choppy.” In comparison, Meerkat and Periscope only play in standard definition.

While both AT&T and Verizon have both capped their data plans, unlimited data options have thrived among other providers looking to differentiate themselves. Whether the growing popularity of mobile streaming video will force a change in the status quo is still uncertain.

“My personal opinion is that we’re in a temporary place where they charge a lot for this data consumption,” says Hunstable, who is looking forward to technologies like 5G networks to make prices more reasonable and bandwidth bigger.

If you kept up with some of the discussions at South by Southwest (SXSW) this past week, you surely noticed a lot of buzz around live streaming video from mobile devices. And while some are talking about mobile streaming like it’s cutting-edge stuff, you might be surprised to learn that Ustream has been doing this for years.

Back in 2009, Ustream introduced the world’s first mobile app capable of streaming live video from the iPhone to the Internet. Almost six years later, it seems the rest of the world is finally catching up.

Since its introduction, Ustream Live Broadcaster has seen more than 15 million downloads and last year, Ustream delivered more than 75 million mobile live broadcasts.

And yes, he thinks casual mobile live streaming is here to stay. “It’s a different thing, like Vine versus YouTube,” he said of the difference between Meerkat and Ustream. In his view, Meerkat will bring attention to live streaming and lower the barrier to people creating videos themselves, and that will benefit the whole sector. Between the coming 5G mobile data networks and cameras that can shoot 1080p video, he said, “there are a lot of very natural forces that are pushing this industry toward an explosion.”

So while a couple tiny startups ride the media wave from SXSW, we’ll continue to innovate on the proven, technology platform that started it all. As noted in last week’s NPR All Tech Considered article by Tajha Chappallet-Lanier, we’re delivering video solutions highly tailored to the needs of marketers, executives, HR professionals, and professional broadcasters. And, we’ll adding powerful, enterprise-class features like security, SD-CDN, eCDN and SSO that enable organizations to use business-ready video solutions.